


Monday You Cough

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Chocolate Box Treat, Friendship, Gen, Hogwarts, Humour, Severus Snape Lives, Severus Snape Makes a Friend Against His Will, Snark, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 11:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5706523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna Lovegood's mere existence is cause for frustration to one Severus Snape, but at least there's tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monday You Cough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tjs_whatnot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjs_whatnot/gifts).



> I love this fandom with the power of a hundred thousand moons shining their mellow light across the Universe. Or something. Only here can one request (and write) Luna Lovegood and Severus Snape engaging in shenanigans together. I hope this Treat pleases; I've been wanting to write something with these two for some time now, and this was the perfect excuse to come up with something ridiculous. Title taken from "Cry Baby" by Cage The Elephant. Many thanks to A for their (very prompt) suggestions, and for having a great eye for my mistakes.

To Severus Snape's infinite frustration, Luna Lovegood was making her way to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom without any evidence of impending death. 

It was the first Wednesday of the new school year, and Professor Lovegood was set to start teaching for the second year in a row. Snape considered petitioning for her immediate removal from the premises, but one could not kick people out of Hogwarts on prolonged life expectancy alone. 

While Snape would not be wholly against following Lovegood around for the better part of the day in the hopes of facilitating any mortality-accelerating situations, he had a class of his own to teach, specifically _Herbology_. 

Upon returning to the land of the living by virtue of (probably) being too wicked to stay dead, he had been prepared to accept the impending demotion (as he saw it) to the post of Potions Master at Hogwarts. After all, he could hardly expect to receive his former Defence Against the Dark Arts position. There was a certain comfort in returning to what he had know for so long, in a way, and he had spent the better part of the summer making peace with taking on his old job. Unfortunately, the Headmistress had had different ideas. 

Snape had something to say, on a good day, about the Headmistress's _ideas_ , but that was hardly language appropriate for polite company. 

The worst part by far was learning Neville Longbottom was now teaching Potions. In some respects, it made sense that all of Snape's nightmares would come true in one fell swoop. 

*

By that Friday, Snape was too mentally exhausted to fret over the potential death—or lack thereof—of one Luna Lovegood. 

If the bint croaked tomorrow, Snape was prepared to lead the one-man parade. If she lived to teach the entire year, more's the pity. He hadn't the energy to devote to it anymore. He was spending all his resources, mental or otherwise, on battling the persistent soil from Greenhouse Seven and its propensity towards attaching itself to Snape's person. 

That morning he'd donned freshly-laundered black robes only to find that by early afternoon they had obtained a veneer of brownish, sticky mud which was drying rapidly. His fingernail beds were a similar colour, despite wearing dragon-hide gloves. 

By dinner time he'd scrubbed his hands raw and had changed into his last remaining set of clean robes. 

Needless to say, he entered the Great Hall that evening intent on throwing dirty looks to anyone who even attempted to look his way, much less engage him in conversation. Unfortunately, no one had seen fit to inform Professor Lovegood of his intentions. He hadn't been sitting down for more than thirty seconds when she sat herself down in the perpetually empty seat to his right, ladled (with unnecessary enthusiasm) a chunky broth into her bowl, and then smiled sunnily in his general direction, before beginning to make headway with her meal. 

The last thing Snape felt like doing was to spend any amount of time in Lovegood's company—unless it involved watching her slowly succumb to an improbable death. 

However, least he bodily remove herself from his presence, or himself from the table, he saw no other alternative than to briskly eat his food and leave without further delay. 

"Flume's Pumpkin Fizz is much better than regular pumpkin juice, isn't it?" he heard from his right. He ignored it, and shovelled mashed potatoes into his mouth with even greater speed. 

He considered serving himself a scoop of strawberry-flavoured No Melt Ice Cream, but speed was of the essence. He pushed his plate aside, stood up and briskly walked out of the Great Hall without looking back. 

*

Breakfast the next day was... odd. 

Lovegood seated herself next to him yet again, made a comment about the food in front of them _yet again_ , and seemed completely unconcerned with either Snape's refusal to utter a single word or to look in her direction. 

This continued at every meal that day, repeated itself on Sunday, and, by the time breakfast started on Monday, Snape was silently plotting his own death. He figured he could make it seem as if Lovegood were to blame. His ghost would enjoy that. 

His plans were derailed, however, by what he would later refer to as the Chocking Incident. It involved a thick piece of buttered toast, his inability to chew it properly before attempting to swallow, and Luna Lovegood performing a Muggle rescue technique on his person. 

Her supposedly saving his life in front of hundreds of witnesses didn't bone well on his framing her for his death, and it seemed improbable everyone in the Great Hall would stop staring at them while he continued to sit at the table, so he chugged his last bit of tea, and left with as much dignity as he could muster. 

*

Someone was knocking on his office door. The knocks sounded like the tune to a popular wizarding song that had to do with maidens bearing fish and sunburnt mermaids, or some such nonsense. 

"Enter!" he barked without looking up from the homework he was correcting. 

The door opened and closed. 

"I trust you're feeling better," Luna Lovegood said. 

Snape groaned. He _could_ refuse to look at her, and then maybe she'd leave out of boredom, but Lovegood was a strange bird, as strange as they came, and it seemed unlikely something as trivial as his ignoring her very presence in his office would drive her away. He looked up long-sufferingly. 

She was standing just inside his office bearing tea. Snape immediately suspected a slow, painful poisoning of his self. He glanced sideways at her, which was difficult to do seeing as he was seated right across from her. 

"How may I help you, Professor Lovegood," he said flatly, without a hint of a smile, in a tone which had been scaring students for years. 

"Tea," she said, motioning with her wand to the teapot and two cups Levitating in the air between them. 

They flew onto his desk, and the tea began pouring itself out. Busy staring in slack-jawed astonishment—why, the very _nerve_ of the woman!—, Snape belatedly realised Lovegood had taken his silence as some sort of invitation to take a seat in front of him. 

"Milk or sugar?" she asked. He continued to stare. She shrugged and waved her wand at her own cup, whose contents turned a milky colour. 

He was just about to begin on a very hearty yelling session, when Lovegood turned a book which had been sitting near the edge of his desk around to look at its cover, exclaiming over it with genuine spirit, "I've been looking for ages for this one. Did you get it delivered, or was it a precious family heirloom?" 

Two and a half hours later, Lovegood left his office carrying two volumes on loan from his personal collection, and leaving Snape feeling like the victim of a Confundus Charm. 

*

Poppy assured him he hadn't been under the Confundus Charm, which didn't explain how it was he was allowing Lovegood to continue sitting next to him at every meal, trying to engage him in conversation (and sometimes succeeding, despite his best efforts), and every evening that week stopping by for tea and more conversation. 

By the time Hallowe'en rolled around Snape knew for a fact the woman possessed at least half a dozen pairs of turnip-shaped earrings and had a formidable tea collection. The latter made the former more palatable to Snape's sensibilities. 

However, it wasn't until Longbottom walked up to him sometime in early November in the corridor between classes to ask him to convey a message to Lovegood because "it's faster this way, haven't seen her all day" that he decided enough was enough. 

That evening he waited impatiently for her to show up for tea at the usual time, intent on putting a stop to this entire thing using his best words and most fearsome facial expressions. 

The knock came, he stood to grunt for her to enter, and was about to say something satisfyingly scathing when he noticed that, while Lovegood was accompanied by the customary teapot and cups, she was also carrying in her arms a rather voluminous book, cover turned towards Snape. 

He nearly swallowed his tongue. It was an early unexpurgated edition of Zygmunt Budge's _Liber Magicis Medicinarum Particularum_ , noticeably lacking in mold deposits, as far as Snape could see. The last bookseller's he had contacted via Floo to enquire about the existence of any copies hadn't managed to verbally respond, as his head had immediately disappeared from the flames with the force of his laughter. 

"It's a present, silly," she explained at Snape's dumbfounded expression. She was busying herself with making the tea, the book nonchalantly placed on the edge of Snape's desk. 

He stammered something about his birthday being in January, or words to that effect. It was incredibly difficult to concentrate with the book so close at hand. 

"Late All Souls' Eve present. It arrived just this morning," she beamed. She passed him a cup of tea. 

Snape graciously allowed her to stay. He took the proffered cup with shaking fingers, deciding that sitting down was a good idea; his knees felt like they might give out at any moment. 

Thankfully, the tea flowed freely.


End file.
